happiness

Any form of exercise can help stop the brain declining with age. Yet a new study shows that dancing beats other forms of fitness activities for its impact on slowing down the process of brain ageing. Varying the kind of dancing you do – especially if learning new, complicated routines – can enhance that impact.

The research, published in the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience Journal, asked two groups of elderly volunteers (average age 68) to engage in dancing or in endurance and flexibility training over a period of 18 months. The aim was to observe how these activities would affect the area of the brain that declines with age – the hippocampus, which plays a key role in memory, learning and balance, and can be affected by dementia. The endurance training volunteers repeated the same exercises each week, while the dancers had a new routine to learn.

Lead author of the study Dr Kathrin Rehfeld, based at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, said that the dancers were given routines from dance genres such as Jazz, Latin and Line dancing, and they had to remember their routines without being prompted or helped by their teachers. This extra challenge – remembering, not just working out – showed a greater degree of improvement in balance among the dancers than among the volunteers on fitness programme.

The researchers concluded: “Only the dancers achieved a significant increase in the balance composite score. Hence, dancing constitutes a promising candidate in counteracting the age-related decline in physical and mental abilities.” Not to mention the mood-boosting qualities of being swept across a dance floor in tune with your favourite beat.

Indulge in creative activities today, and you could well feel more joy, enthusiasm and uplift tomorrow. That’s according to research into the relationship between day-to-day creativity and wellbeing by New Zealand’s University of Utago.

Psychology researchers analysed the daily diaries of 658 university students, where they logged their experiences and emotional states over 13 days.

Patterns emerged showing that participants felt more enthusiastic and had higher “flourishing” in the days after they had been creative. Flourishing is a concept that determines overall wellbeing, happiness and potential for growth.

Lead researcher Dr Tamlin Conner said previous research had focused on how emotions can hamper or support creative activity. However, in this new study, rather than positive feelings predicting next-day creative activity, it was actually previous day’s creative activity that predicted the next day’s positive feelings and wellbeing.

Top creative activities for wellbeing include:

Songwriting.

Creative writing (poetry, short fiction).

Knitting and crochet.

Making new recipes.

Painting, drawing, and sketching.

Graphic and digital design.

Musical performance.

Dr Conner concluded: “This finding suggests a particular kind of upward spiral for wellbeing and creativity – engaging in creative behaviour leads to increases in wellbeing the next day, and this increased wellbeing is likely to facilitate creative activity on the same day. Overall, these findings support the emerging emphasis on everyday creativity as a means of cultivating positive psychological functioning.”

The researchers discovered that people’s happiness levels increased within two years of eating more fruit and veg (up to eight portions a day). They said this represented “an increase in life satisfaction equivalent to moving from unemployment to employment”.

Happiness increased incrementally the more fruit and vegetables a person consumed. While healthy eating has proven to boost physical health years down the line, the impact on psychological health and happiness could be enjoyed much sooner.

Dr Redzo Mujcic, research fellow at the University of Queensland, added: “Perhaps our results will be more effective than traditional messages in convincing people to have a healthy diet. There is a psychological payoff now from fruit and vegetables – not just a lower health risk decades later.”

The relentless human desire to know – to satisfy curiosity at all costs – can be more of a curse than a blessing, according to scientists. Whether it’s surreptitiously checking your partner’s phone for signs of infidelity, avidly reading celebrity gossip mags, or hunting people down on social media, too much curiosity can be like opening Pandora’s Box: the urge to do it can outweigh any benefits you might get from knowing, and it can seriously affect your happiness and wellbeing.

The scientists carried out four experiments that exposed people to electric shocks with no apparent benefits, to prove a point that people were driven by “humans’ deep-seated desire to resolve uncertainty, regardless of the harm it may bring”. One experiment involved clicking colour-coded pens, some of which had electric shocks and some didn’t. Where there was uncertainty (not clear which colour pens had batteries) people clicked more of the pens.

The researchers said: “The study suggests that humans possess an inherent desire, independent of consequentialist considerations, to resolve uncertainty; when facing something uncertain and feeling curious, they will act to resolve the uncertainty even if they expect negative consequences. Just as curiosity drove Pandora to open the box despite being warned of its pernicious contents, curiosity can lure humans—like you and me—to seek information with predictably ominous consequences.”

Something to bear in mind before you start secretly stalking your ex on social media. Sometimes, for your own happiness, it may be better just not to know.

There’s an old adage that says holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. The refusal to forgive another for the perceived wrongs they’ve done against you may keep you on the moral high ground, but ultimately you could remain stuck, stressed and strung out. Forgiving the other means letting them off, and so you hold on tight to your sense of what’s right and wrong.

Researchers from Luther College analysed the stress exposure, lifestyle factors, propensity to forgive, and physical and mental factors among 148 people. They concluded that people who are more forgiving are also more able to handle stress, and that “stress degrades and forgiveness protects” health. They added: ” Developing a more forgiving coping style may help minimise stress-related disorders.”

How so? More research may be needed to determine exactly how forgiveness provides a buffer from stress – but there is something healing about letting go of painful and resentful feelings regarding a situation. It’s not about letting the person get away with it. It’s about not letting your feelings consume your life.

Lead researcher Professor Loren Touissant from Luther College said: “More forgiving individuals may have a more adaptive or extensive repertoire of coping strategies that mitigate the negative effects of stress on health… People with higher levels of forgivingness also have a greater tendency to use problem-focused coping and cognitive restructuring, and are less likely to use rumination, emotional expression and wishful thinking.”

In summary, forgiveness means making the decision to let something go instead of torturing yourself by over-thinking it and wishing life could be different.

The researchers concluded: “The findings provide support for greater recovery in participants who viewed green scenes as compared to participants who viewed built scenes. Viewing green scenes may thus be particularly effective in supporting relaxation and recovery after experiencing a stressful period, and thereby could serve as an opportunity for micro-restorative experiences and a promising tool in preventing chronic stress and stress-related diseases.”

So, seek out green if you’ve had a stressful period and would like some respite and recovery.

The friendship and community shared in pubs can boost wellbeing (pic courtesy of dan/freedigitalphotos.net)

If you’ve got a local community pub that you visit regularly for a social pint, you’re more likely to be happier and more trusting than people who don’t have a local. That’s according to research from the University of Oxford (carried out for Camra, the Campaign for Real Ale). While Camra – understandably – would promote research saying pubs are good for you, the findings of the study focus less on drinking beer and more on the emotional and mental wellbeing of people who often pop down their local.

The study was carried out by Oxford University Professor Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist known for his research into the limit on the number of friends any one person can have (it’s 150, in case you were wondering).

His report, Friends on Tap, says that the more friends you have and the more often you see them, the happier and healthier you’ll be. If you have a local pub and visit it regularly, you’re likely to have a better community network, and feel happier and more fulfilled with your life than, say, someone who might visit a larger pub now and again and who doesn’t know that many people there. People in city centre bars are said to have shorter conversations and feel less engaged with the people they’re out with. The research talks about social drinking, not people who regularly consume vast quantities of alcohol.

Professor Robin Dunbar said: “Friendship and community are probably the two most important factors influencing our health and wellbeing. Making and maintaining friendships, however, is something that has to be done face-to-face: the digital world is simply no substitute. Given the increasing tendency for our social life to be online rather than face-to-face, having relaxed accessible venues where people can meet old friends and make new ones becomes ever more necessary.”